Safety deposit boxes may be used by banking customers to store valuables. Banks commonly provide a plurality of safety deposit boxes in a vault or other secure area. Customers of the bank may rent the safety deposit box for a fee. Banking customers may store valuable documents and other items in their safety deposit box and may access them when desired at times when the bank is open. An example of an embodiment of a safety deposit box is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,932 the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Safety deposit boxes commonly include two key locks. Each of the two key locks must be opened by a corresponding respective key in order for the safety deposit box to be opened. One of the key locks is actuated by a guard key. The guard key is held by the bank. The same guard key may be operative to open the guard lock on some or all of a plurality of safety deposit boxes in the bank.
A second key lock on a safety deposit box is the customer lock. The customer lock can only be opened by a unique key which is given to the particular customer who has leased the safety deposit box.
Commonly a customer wishing to access their safety deposit box will travel to the bank at a time when the bank is open. During normal business hours it is common for the main vault door to be either open or capable of being unlocked. In cases where the vault door is open, access to the interior of the vault may nonetheless be controlled by a locked day gate or other structure, which can be unlocked with a key or other device. A teller or other bank employee is informed by the customer that they wish to access their safety deposit box. The bank employee then verifies the identity of the customer and that they have leased a safety deposit box with the bank. Upon verifying this information the bank employee then escorts the customer into the vault. The bank employee unlocks and opens the day gate to provide access if such a day gate is being used.
Once in the vault the bank employee then uses the appropriate guard key to place the guard lock on the customer's safety deposit box in an unlocked condition. This often involves extending the guard key in the key opening of the guard lock and turning the lock to the open position. The bank employee then typically observes the customer place their key in the customer lock. The customer then inserts the key in the key opening and turns it, thereby opening the lock. When the guard lock and the customer lock are both placed in the unlocked position, the safety deposit box door is enabled to be opened.
Typically once the customer has opened the safety deposit box, they remove a container held therein which holds the customer's items. The bank employee then escorts the safety deposit box customer to an appropriate area where the customer may privately access the contents of the container. Once the customer has finished, they will return to their safety deposit box, reinsert the container, close the safety deposit box door and lock the customer lock. This returns the safety deposit box to the locked condition. The customer then takes their key from the customer lock. The bank employee then returns the guard lock to the locked position, removes the guard key from the guard lock, and escorts the customer from the vault.
While this process for accessing a safety deposit box is effective, it is also labor intensive for the bank. As a result systems have been devised in which a customer is enabled to access the contents of their safety deposit box with less involvement of the bank's employees. These systems involve placing a guard key of each guard lock in connection with the lock in a fixed unlocked condition. In this way each safety deposit box door can be opened using only the customer key for the corresponding customer lock. The bank may manually or electronically limit access to the vault to those persons who have leased safety deposit boxes. Such persons may then act unsupervised to open their respective box, access the contents and close it when they are finished. This can sometimes be accomplished without involvement of bank employees.
A potential drawback associated with such an approach is that the unescorted user within the vault may engage in improper activities. This may include for example, attempting to open other safety deposit boxes that are not those of the user. This may be done through the use of one or more keys that have been fabricated and/or modified for this purpose. If the unscrupulous user is able to open a safety deposit box without authorization, they may take the valuable contents thereof without being detected. In addition it may be many months before the rightful owner of the safety deposit box has occasion to check the contents and discover that items have been taken. This long time period between when the crime is committed and when it is discovered, further makes it difficult to determine who is responsible for the criminal activity.
As a result improved systems may be beneficial.